It all started when I received the dreaded text message …”I received a strange email from you”… My friend shared a copy of the fraudulent email content. Within minutes, I received notifications from dozens of friends, through email, text, DMs, and phone calls. Whether it was someone from one of my two non-profit boards, parents of my kids’ former teammates or classmates, members of my book club or old paddle tennis teams, or friends from high school, college, or the neighborhood, I heard from a lot of people on my contact list. I appreciate everyone looking out for me. After I took a deep breath, my first thought was, “what should I do now?” Fortunately, a neighbor who helps me with IT consulting texted me as soon as he received the fraudulent email. He walked me through the first steps: Update your password on your email account. Let friends know…
Email Hacks: What to Do
Numerous schemes have emerged to take advantage of people’s vulnerability due to COVID-19. Examples include phishing emails referring to urgent pandemic updates, robocalls from the Department of Public Health, texts related to unemployment claims, phony DocuSign requests, and, of course, email hacks. Most experts anticipate that the incidence of fraud will continue to escalate. For the past six years, I have written and spoken extensively about getting one’s financial house in order. Passwords, security, and identity theft protection are all topics that I address. I am well versed in the subject, but despite this I discovered that my personal email was hacked. Data breaches are unfortunately common – we have all seen the headlines. As surprised as I was that this happened, I was equally surprised at how little help I received from my provider to address the issue. While I took some steps right away, there were also others…
An Email Hack – What to Do
Since the beginning of 2020, the Federal Trade Commission reports that there have been more than 150,000 fraud, phishing scams, and identity theft occurrences. Security experts, Risk Based Security, see various schemes emerging to take advantage of people’s vulnerability due to COVID-19. Examples include phishing emails referring to urgent pandemic updates, robocalls from the Department of Public Health, texts related to unemployment claims, and of course email hacks. Like most experts, Risk Based Security anticipates that the incidence of fraud will continue to escalate. For the past six years, I have written and spoken extensively about getting one’s financial house in order. Passwords, security, and identity theft protection are all topics that I address. I am well versed in the subject, but despite this I discovered that my personal email was hacked a few weeks ago. Data breaches are unfortunately common – we have all seen the headlines. As surprised as…